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Four Princes

Hay Festival 2017,
Monday 29 May 2017

The historian conjures the supreme C16th monarchs whose empires and kingdoms shaped the modern world. He explores the schism in Christianity and the flowering of Islam in the Ottoman Empire. He shows with exquisite erudition how Henry VIII of England, Francis I of France, Charles V of Spain and Suleiman the Magnificent forged the politics, culture and religion of their time and ours.

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True Believer: Stalin’s Last American Spy

Hay Festival 2017,
Monday 29 May 2017

The harrowing story of an American traitor who sold out his country to the Russian president. Noel Field, once a well-meaning and privileged American working in the State Department, spied for the Soviets during the 1930s and -40s. Later, a pawn in Stalin’s sinister master strategy, Field was kidnapped and tortured by the KGB, and forced to testify against his own Communist comrades. Marton is an award-winning journalist, a human rights campaigner, and the author of Enemies of the People and The Great Escape.

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Gather Cook Feast: Recipes from Land and Water

Hay Festival 2017,
Monday 29 May 2017

Seaton, the founder of TOAST, is inspired by the food from our seas, our rivers, our farmland, our gardens and our wild places. Her new cookbook is full of simple, seasonal and nourishing recipes such as braised short ribs with horseradish, courgette fritters with minted yoghurt, mackerel escabeche with wild fennel and kale, and roast vegetable and barley salad with crisped artichokes. She shares her love of food and landscape with Kitty Corrigan.

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The Seren 2017 Poetry Gala

Hay Festival 2017,
Monday 29 May 2017

Four poets read from new collections in this poetry platform. Campbell reads from her new collection Heat Signature. Blewitt reads from her Forward-commended This is Not a Rescue. Hooson reads from her collection The Other City. Atkin reads from Basic Nest Architecture.

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Waiting for Callback: Take Two and The It Girl: Superstar Geek

Hay Festival 2017,
Monday 29 May 2017

Fame, that’s all Elektra, star of Waiting for Callback: Take Two, has ever wanted, and now she has a part in a film, but things don’t go quite to plan. Anna Huntly, star of The It Girl: Superstar Geek, has a different ambition. Join the creators of these girls as they discuss their witty and wise stories of teenage dreams and anxieties with Emily Drabble, Head of Booktrust’s children’s book promotion.

11+

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The World, by Design: The Victoria & Albert Museum in an age of Brexit, BRICS and Netflix

Hay Festival 2017,
Monday 29 May 2017

The new Director of the V&A explores the role of culture and curation in a world turning on a new axis, where intelligence is artificial and some pots are still priceless; where a common wealth of resources and makers can fashion global treasures.

In association with the V&A

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I’m An Expert, Get Me Out of Here

Hay Festival 2017,
Monday 29 May 2017

Join enthusiastic host Ed Gillespie and two teams of the great and the good for this riotous and irreverent game show. Expect a heady mix of topicality, tomfoolery and randomness. No (live) insects will be hurt during the proceedings. We can’t guarantee the same for our heroic participants’ feelings, pride or reputation.

Sponsored by Good Energy

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Parsnips, Buttered: bamboozle and boycott modern life, one email at a time

Hay Festival 2017,
Monday 29 May 2017

This is the comedian’s first book. His first book that he’s written. He’s read loads of books. “Using letters, emails, tweets and telegrams I will show you how the things in your life that make you sad, low or anxious can soon appear trivial, insignificant and like a fish. In short, I will butter your parsnips.” So..

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Using the Creative Arts to Help People With Dementia to Live Well - University of Worcester Series 1

Hay Festival 2017,
Monday 29 May 2017

There are estimated to be 850,000 people in the UK living with dementia. Garabedian is a musician and a researcher within the Association of Dementia Studies at the University of Worcester. She discusses ways in which the creative arts can help unlock memories and encourage communication.

In partnership with University of Worcester

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The Empty Chair: The National Poet of Wales on Hedd Wyn

Hay Festival 2017,
Monday 29 May 2017

2017 marks 100 years since the Third Battle of Ypres, also known as Passchendaele. One of those who fell in battle was Ellis Humphrey Evans, the poet from Meirionnydd whose Bardic name was Hedd Wyn. He died before being announced winner of the Chair at the National Eisteddfod in Birkenhead. The empty chair was draped in black, and Hedd Wyn is still remembered throughout Wales, as he is in Flanders, as a potent symbol of bloodshed and loss. Ifor ap Glyn will talk about the life, work and remarkable legacy of Hedd Wyn.

The annual Gwyn Jones Lecture in association with Literature Wales and The Welsh Academy.

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Brexit Britain 2: How To Do It

Hay Festival 2017,
Monday 29 May 2017

If the political decision is difficult, what will the practical delivery be like? How can it be done? By whom? And when? Maddox is the Director of the Institute for Government; Lord Burns was Permanent Secretary to the Treasury in the 1990s; Pryce was joint head of the Government’s Economic Service until 2010, and is the author of Greekonomics; Allen Green writes the Jack of Kent blog and is the author of Brexit: What Everyone Needs to Know.

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Quarrybank Women’s Work

Hay Festival 2017,
Monday 29 May 2017

The comedian and poet performs work produced during her residency at Quarry Bank, one of the Industrial Revolution’s best-preserved textile mills. Fox has had unique access to journals of women who worked in the mill, which has informed her lifelong commitment to the issues of gender history and ‘Northern-ness’.

In association with The National Trust

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Reformations 11: Men

Hay Festival 2017,
Tuesday 30 May 2017

Questions of masculinity have been at the heart of Sheers’ writing for 20 years, in his plays Mametz and The Two Worlds of Charlie F, in his fiction Resistance and I Saw A Man, and in his poetry – most clearly in Pink Mist. In 2012 he was also artist in residence with the Welsh Rugby Union. Here he interrogates ideas of masculinity in essay form, and reimagines a man’s world.

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The Holocaust: A New History

Hay Festival 2017,
Tuesday 30 May 2017

Mixing extensive research and testimony from survivors with a searing analysis of the decision-making of the Nazi state, the distinguished film-maker and historian’s landmark work answers two of the most fundamental questions in history – how, and why, did the holocaust happen?

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The Early Edition: The News Review Revue

Hay Festival 2017,
Tuesday 30 May 2017

What’s hot? What’s not? How do you decode the qualities’ agendas and how far can you trust the red tops? Why did this make the news and that make chip-wrapping? The comedians spend an hour in the human zoo, tearing up stories, making mad the guilty and appalling the free…

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The Mathematics of Networks and Maps - Cardiff University Series 2

Hay Festival 2017,
Tuesday 30 May 2017

How do satnavs find the quickest route from one town to another? What’s the most efficient way to visit the best pubs in the UK? Is it true that all living things in the world are six or fewer degrees of separation away from each other? The Cardiff mathematician shows, pictorially, how the many problems in everyday life can be modelled as networks: from the colouring of maps to the way Facebook makes friend recommendations.

In association with Cardiff University

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Plan International UK: Because I am a Girl

Hay Festival 2017,
Tuesday 30 May 2017

The global children’s charity introduces the world’s biggest campaign for girls’ rights. The founder of the Everyday Sexism project shares her story and talks about barriers facing girls today in the UK and around the world: from online trolling to period poverty and gender stereotypes. Join the conversation and explore what it means to be a girl today.

In association with Plan International UK

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Secret Tales from Wales

Hay Festival 2017,
Tuesday 30 May 2017

This writer tells ancient folktales with the wit of a stand-up and the turn of phrase of a poet. Come and be enthralled as he launches his latest collection. Expect secrets, riddles, mysterious strangers, awful jokes and beautiful lies.

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The Seabird’s Cry: The Lives and Loves of Puffins, Gannets and Other Ocean Voyagers

Hay Festival 2017,
Tuesday 30 May 2017

Modern science has begun to understand sea birds: their epic voyages, their astonishing abilities to navigate for tens of thousands of miles on a featureless sea, their ability to smell their way towards fish and home. Only the poets in the past would have thought of seabirds as creatures riding the ripples and currents of the planet, though that is what the scientists are witnessing now, too. But a global tragedy is unfolding. The number of seabirds is in freefall: a 70% decline, a billion fewer now than there were in 1950.

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The Greatest Story Ever Told...So Far

Hay Festival 2017,
Tuesday 30 May 2017

Krauss takes us on a tour of science and the brilliant personalities who shaped it, often against political and religious indoctrination, enduring persecution and ostracism. He explains our current understanding of nature and the struggle to construct, and then to understand the greatest theoretical edifice ever assembled: the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Krauss is the author of the classic A Universe From Nothing and The Physics of Star Trek.

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Lonely Courage

Hay Festival 2017,
Tuesday 30 May 2017

Stroud tells the true stories of the SOE heroines who fought with the Resistance to free Nazi-occupied France. He is joined by Tania Szabó, who has also written a book about one of those agents, her mother: Young, Brave and Beautiful: The Missions of Special Operations Executive Agent Lieutenant Violette Szabó, George Cross, Croix de Guerre avec Étoile de Bronze.

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Cambridge Series: Body, Brain and Behaviour

Hay Festival 2017,
Tuesday 30 May 2017

Once considered separate and independent, it is now clear that the there is an intimate, two-way connection between the two most complex body systems: the immune system and the brain. So our behaviour can affect inflammation in the body, and immune cells can alter our behaviour. Reverend Alasdair Coles, Professor of Neuroimmunology examines the implications. Chaired by Daniel Davis.

In association with Cambridge University

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Enemies of the People? - University of Worcester Series 2

Hay Festival 2017,
Tuesday 30 May 2017

Judges have blocked Presidential executive orders in the US and corrected the legality of the Prime Minister’s parliamentary Article 50 procedures in the UK. What should the constitutional role of the courts be in maintaining a proper balance of power in a modern democracy? Professor PennyDarbyshire is from Kingston Law School, Bill Davies is Head of the School of Law and Chris Monaghan is Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Worcester, David Shaw is the former Chief Constable of West Mercia Police and they are joined by retired judge, Toby Hooper QC.

In partnership with University of Worcester

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Ottoline and Mr Chicken

Hay Festival 2017,
Tuesday 30 May 2017

Join illustrators Chris Riddell and Leigh Hobbs, the Children’s Laureates of the UK and Australia respectively, as they discuss and demonstrate their work in an event of inspiration, entertainment and live drawing.